The Portuguese star claimed 1st place after collecting 37.66% of the votes, while Messi got only 15.76% and Neuer 15.72%. When granting his acceptance speech on stage, the 29-year old thanked everyone who helped him in his journey over the past year and made a promise that now he’ll be going after Messi‘s 4 Ballon d’Ors record.

At the end of his speech, there was still time for an awkward moment when Ronaldo decided to present the world with a grotesque shout to celebrate the occasion. He would then explain his action as being a thanking gesture towards his teammates, since that’s a shout most of the players do in Real Madrid when celebrating goals and victories in both practices and games.

Below, you can take a quick look at the final top 10 ranking for the 2014 FIFA Ballon d’Or, sorted out by votes/points:

If Ronaldo claiming his 3rd FIFA Ballon d’Or didn’t exactly surprise anyone, the same can’t be said about Messi coming in front of Manuel Neuer in the voting results. In the weeks and months prior to the awards ceremony, the Argentinian has always been considered the the less likely candidate to take home the Ballon d’Or and the fact that he still managed to beat Neuer for the second place of the podium has certainly caught many people unprepared.

Nevertheless, Cristiano Ronaldo still won by a big margin of votes as we can see in the rankings listed above and it’s also interesting to see that the first 9 players from the 10 most voted players for the 2014 FIFA Ballon d’Or are all playing for either Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich.